


with you, my friend

by constellatory



Category: Homestuck, MS Paint Adventures
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-17
Updated: 2013-04-17
Packaged: 2017-12-08 18:04:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/764368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constellatory/pseuds/constellatory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Hi, Karkat," he said. Then he beamed like the sun and it was fucking beautiful.</p>
            </blockquote>





	with you, my friend

**Author's Note:**

> For my hate wife.

He woke up alone. This was unusual. He'd grown accustomed in the past weeks and months to waking up in a tangle of limbs and bed sheets. He'd hated it at first, always scrambling free with a growl of annoyance and getting up to stretch, as if to assert just how _un-fucking-encumbered_ he was. But, slowly, over time, he'd come to tolerate it; maybe be okay with it; start to enjoy it; even look forward to it; and to miss it when it didn't happen.

This morning it didn't happen. The bed was empty.

But he could hear, far off, a faint sound. It was sweet and quiet and melodic and punctuated with barely-there _whumps_ like especially careful footsteps. God, where was that coming from? Upstairs? 

All confusion and cold, vaguely insulted annoyance, Karkat pulled himself out of bed and, with more quietness than he consciously intended, padded his way down the hall and up the stairs. As he moved the sound grew more pronounced, though whether that had more to do with his getting closer or the playing getting louder, he couldn't tell.

It was playing. It was the sounds of the upright piano. They'd had the thing in a barely-used room upstairs for months, and John had never touched it. Not, at least, that Karkat had heard. But the music spinning down the hall now was [a beautiful piece](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLma2oxIFP0), complete and complex, and it couldn't possibly be the first time John has played it. Could it? Inexorably, as if pulled, Karkat found himself drawn to the doorway.

And there was John. His back was to the door and his shoulders were hunched as he leaned over the keyboard, fingers and hands racing across the keys. His feet were on the pedals, pushing down with perfect timing as his arms rose and fell, his hands ghosting light as air back and forth, back and forth. The sound built to a crescendo and something in Karkat went very still. Without realizing it, he held his breath as the music came thundering to a climax, disappeared into silence, and reemerged again. New and gentle and barely there, risen from the still lingering images and colors of what had gone just before. Karkat studied the planes of his back, the way the muscles there bunched and shifted and released as John moved. There was something almost hypnotic about watching him play.

The song, the beautiful song, now reduced to quiet, did not grow loud again. It remained gentle and careful, more of a caress then a crash, and gently tapered away into nothing. And for a breath of time in the silence, John sat there, his fingers still on the final keys, as if he couldn't bear to take himself away. Then he sighed out, low, and turned to face Karkat with a rueful smile. 

"Hi, Karkat," he said. Then he beamed like the sun and it was fucking beautiful.

For a moment, Karkat simply stood there, blinking, startled to have been discovered (had John know he was there all along?). Then he flushed angrily (he was embarrassed, really), scowled, and tossed a "Morning, asshole" over his shoulder and left the room (to go make breakfast, they both well knew). John's laughter, as obnoxious as ever, followed him down the hallway. It was wonderful.

Later, when they were sitting at the table, John mentioned off-hand getting back into composition. The look in his eyes was far away, his smile shadowed with a hint of something sad. And Karkat, being Karkat (see: _cantankerous bitch_ ), simply cocked a brow, pointed his spoon at John's face, and said, "You'd fucking better."

That made John smile. And that, god help him, is all he could have ever asked for.


End file.
